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October 6, 2005

More from 7th Circuit on reasonableness review

A break between talks at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law and a borrowed computer allow me to report on the latest Seventh Circuit decision confirming the reality that few (if any?) properly-calculated guideline sentences are going to be found unreasonable after Booker. In US v. Williams, No. 03-4091 (7th Cir. Oct. 6, 2005) (accessible here), the Seventh Circuit affirms a nearly 10-year sentence at the top of the applicable range for a felon-in-possession conviction and explains (with cites omitted):

Deciding whether or not the sentence imposed by the
district court is reasonable entails deferential review. The question is not how we
ourselves would have resolved the factors identified as
relevant by section 3553(a) — many of which are vague
and, worse perhaps, hopelessly open-ended — nor what sentence we ourselves ultimately might
have decided to impose on the defendant. We are
not sentencing judges. Rather, what we must decide is
whether the district judge imposed the sentence he or she
did for reasons that are logical and consistent with the
factors set forth in section 3553(a). As we have noted, a
sentence imposed within a properly calculated Guidelines
range is presumptively reasonable. We have left room for the possibility that there
will be some cases in which a sentence within the Guidelines
range, measured against the factors identified in
section 3553(a), stands out as unreasonable. But those
cases ... will be rare.